I tracked this down because I've spent the past 35 years haunted by the image of Rico Dredd's surgically altered face to enable him to serve out his 20-year sentence on Titan. The reveal is still shocking, but I had forgotten that it all leads to a terrible joke where an exhausted Judge Dredd carries Rico's body claiming, "He ain't heavy..."

Where this short strip terrified me years ago, this time around it made my cry and laugh within a few panels.

It'll be another few hundred issues before the level of storytelling improves and I may dip in and out of this series until I get to the Dead Man and Necropolis, but I'm also keen to catch up on the Judge Child, Chopper and other stuff I missed.

The clarity of the reprint in these editions isn't always ideal, but they look great on the shelf and it's better than having to track down thousands of weekly back issues. ( )

I really enjoyed the recent 'Dredd' movie, so I figured I'd dig up the original comics. Unfortunately, I found the early issues not very entertaining, and overall rather generic "hero comic" stuff. It reminded me again of why I don't dig DC/Marvel superhero stuff.

This isn't exactly awful, but it just doesn't hold my attention, and between all the meaningless action, the best I could hope for was a lukewarm one-liner. The later issues are supposed to be better, but I'm not expecting I'll love those either, really. ( )

I've been reading Judge Dredd on and off since the 1980s when I could get the reprint books and then Eagle Comics in comic and second hand bookstores.

It was nice to see a lot of early material I hadn't seen. I had to get about a fourth of the way through to find familiar material: "The Return of Ricco" with Judge Dredd's bad brother.

Yes, Dredd's one-liners got grimmer and funnier later on and there were a lot more Dredd thought balloons in these stories than I'm used to. The crimes in Mega City 1 aren't as bizarre as later on.

But you do get some key Wagner-Bolland collaborations.

Presentation-wise, I liked the earlier, larger reprints on better paper (Titan Books was the publisher, I believe.) And some of the big spreads are obscured by the spine crease, but all the stories in order makes up for it, and I'll be checking out future installments. ( )

A good intro to the Dredd series and all that is Mega City-1. This was written in the 1970s and it reads like it. It shows some its age but I think that adds some much needed charm to the story. ( )

Long-time 2000 AD reader. Classic Dredd, thrills. ( )